HITRANS Partnership Manager Frank Roach told RAIL that he was keen to interest Transport Scotland in using battery Class 230s to run shuttle services between Wick and Thurso.

I don’t live in the Far North of Scotland and I’ve never been further North on the mainland that Inverness, so I have no right to criticise the need for a new rail shuttle service between Thurso and Wick.

Consider.

Wick and Thurso are both towns with populations in the region of 7-8,000 people.

I suspect that if you live in Wick and want a new widget for your boiler, that it will be in Thurso. And of course, vice-versa!

Wick and Thurso get four trains per day to and from Inverness and the same number of trains each way between the two towns.

So it’s not very convenient if an elderly person, who can’t drive wants to go and visit their sibling or friend in the other town for the afternoon.

The two towns would appear to be twenty-nine minutes or twenty-one miles apart by rail.

The article also states that a battery-powered Class 230 train can run at up to sixty mph with acceleration similar to that of an EMU up to forty mph.

Each round trip would probably take an hour, so one train could provide an hourly service.

A prototype rapid charging facility at its Long Marston base would use short sections of third-rail to quickly recharge a Class 230’s batteries. He said that the third-rail shoegear fitted t the trains in their London Underground service could handle higher currents than simply plugging a cable into the train.

The rapid charging concept consists of a shipping container of batteries that are trickle charged from a mains supply. When a Class 230 sits over the short sections of third-rail, electricity can be quickly transferred to the train’s batteries. When the train is away, the power rails are earthed to ensure they pose no risk The concept provides for charging a Class 230 as it pauses at a terminus before making its return journey.

What surprises me, is the claim, that third-rail is a very effective way of charging the batteries.

But Vivarail’s charging method using third-rail must open up affordable charging in stations and depots with poor-quality or low-capacity electricity supply.

Further Development

The design is very much capable of further development.

The charging system could be used with any train, which has a third-rail capability.

It could be made to work in both terminal and through platforms.

The operation could be totally automatic .

The system would switch on when the train stops over top and it completes the electrical circuit to allow charging.

When the train moves away and breaks the circuit, the system would switch off and earth the third-rail.

The batteries in the charging system could be charged by solar- or wind-power, instead of mains power.

I believe we’ll see some very ingenious charging systems for battery/electric trains.

About This Blog

What this blog will eventually be about I do not know.

But it will be about how I’m coping with the loss of my wife and son to cancer in recent years and how I manage with being a coeliac and recovering from a stroke. It will be about travel, sport, engineering, food, art, computers, large projects and London, that are some of the passions that fill my life.

And hopefully, it will get rid of the lonely times, from which I still suffer.